Does the presence of neurons in the heart increase its complexity though?

As far as I understand it, every organ/muscle in the body has neurons - including the lungs as it happens. I can only assume that the stem cells that
have been coaxed into forming the new organ also form the required nerves to make it operate. If not, then this is something they need to look at!

I was just commenting in terms of complexity - the lungs are a far more complex structure than the heart - so presuming they have actually grown a set
of lungs that can operate as well as a natural set, neurons and all the other cell types included, then it should be relatively easy to grow a heart.

jjkenobi
Blah blah blah. I read about these amazing scientific discoveries like this and the first thing I wonder is WHY am I still bald? They can grow a
lung in a jar. They can grow an ear on the back of a rat. I can't grow some hair on my bald noggin? I want some answers.

We can't grow hair on your bald head yet because the Hair root is a rather complicated piece of organ itself. Most of the lab grown tissues are made
of 2-3 different type of cells and they are basically layered . Whereus the Hair root is actually made up of 9 different cells and the 3 dimensional
nature of the root itself is proving to be too difficult to imitate in the lab.

Enzo954
This reminds me of that movie "The Island". The wealthy will eventually have clones on standby to replace failed organs and needed body parts.

Not really, tissue engineering does not require whole body for organ to be grown.

It is interesting that many confuse tissue engineering with cloning. A bit more then 10 years ago I did research on this topic for one of my classes
and at that time we dogs with 'engineered' liver living just fine. I can just imagine what another 10 years of research will do...

We don't need robotics, we need our own organs for replacement. And if your thyroids gone, we need our own thyroid for replacement.

Also, I don't want to eat an animal that was alive, want to have farms and caretake and harvest eggs and dairy from non polluted over drugged,
radiated healthy animals. But there is no reason for muscles to not be grown in facilities, clean and healthy, no GMO or insect dna added thank you
very much.

I've known this since childhood, reading omni and science digest when young, kept asking when they would do this.

We will see second hand lungs on ebay..
used lung done 50.7 years of breathing and heavy smoking.
Maybe 5 more years left in them.
Lungs aren't needed because I bought brand new ones..
bidding starts at 99 cents.

Not to be a party pooper but they just got existing human lungs and put stem cells into the existing lung scaffolding.
We think of a human lung as working but this is not an operative human lung.
Since they used existing lungs they are stretching the truth when they say they grew a lung as they did not, they just used the existing lung form
and put stem cells on it.
Wake me up for mediascience worship when they really grow a lung(without using an existing lung) and it works.

(Medical Xpress)—A team of researchers with the University of Texanderfful s has, for the first time, successfully grown a human
lung in a lab. Project leads Dr. Joaquin Cortiella and Dr. Joan Nichols announced the landmark breakthrough to various members of the press this past
week, describing the procedure and what was achieved.

Growing organs in the lab has become a reality in the past couple of years as scientists have learned more about stem cells and how they mature to
become the cells that make up organs and other body parts. Windpipes, for example, have been successfully grown and implanted into human patients, and
just last spring, a team of researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston successfully implanted lab grown kidneys into rats. In this new
effort, the researchers have been focusing on growing one of the most complicated organs in the human body—the lungs.

What does ATS think about this?

It seems they are moving forward with lab grown organ replacements at an ever increasing speed. I have a thread in the works along these lines. I came
across this story while researching for it. Outside the obvious smokers needs for a new set I think this is a wonderful development for people with
lung problems not related to smoking.

I know some may be against such developments.

Anyway, I thought it was worth posting...

yep.. Cloning~

even the very word whispers of strangeness....

CT side of it.. ? What if....this is actually very old news in some circles ? Cloning human ears on backs of mice is nearly 15 years old ?

The word Cloning, keeps recirculating back to me in different ways, keeps it fresh in my mind, for some reason. Begs the question over and over..."Is
genetic manipulation / reconstruction a bad thing?"

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